New Paper on Evolutionary Arguments Against Theism

Jong, Jonathan and Aku Visala. "Evolutionary Debunking Arguments Against Theism, Reconsidered", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming. DOI 10.1007/s11153-014-9461-6).

Here's the abstract:

Evolutionary debunking arguments (EDAs) against religious beliefs move from the claim that religious beliefs are caused by off-track processes to the conclusion that said religious beliefs are unjustified and/or false. Prima facie, EDAs commit the genetic fallacy, unduly conflating the context of discovery and the context of justification. In this paper, we first consider whether EDAs necessarily commit the genetic fallacy, and if not, whether modified EDAs (e.g., those that posit falsehood-tracking or perniciously deceptive belief-forming mechanisms) provide successful arguments against theism. Then, we critically evaluate more recent attempts to argue that a more promiscuous evolutionary scepticism renders religious belief unjustified because, unlike commonsense and scientific beliefs, religious beliefs have no way out of such scepticism.

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Robert M. Adams (1937-2024)

 Robert M. Adams, a seminal figure in philosophy of religion, has passed. Details here . Adams was a good man. I recall fondly when he and h...